《Pett’s Commentary on the Bible –1 John》(PeterPett)
Commentator
Dr. Peter Pett BA BD (Hons-London) DD is a retired Baptist minister and college lecturer. He holds a BD (good honours) from King's College London and was trained at what is now the London School of Theology (formerly London Bible College).
In this modernly written verse-by-verse commentary of the Bible (see book exclusions below), Dr. Peter Pett leads the reader through the Scriptures with accuracy and insight. Students and scholars alike will delight at Pett's clear and direct style, concisely examining the original text, its writers, translations and above all, the God who inspired it. Study the bible online.
Commentary excludes 1 and 2 Chronicles, Esther, Job, and Psalms 67-150 because the material has not yet been written.
00 Introduction
John’s First Letter.
Introduction.
This first letter would appear to be a general pastoral homily from the Apostle John to the churches with whom he was in contact, but with urgent content. There were those about who were causing a disturbance of faith in the churches through their false teaching and John was concerned to put the situation right. This would explain its lack of an introduction as it was borne by known messengers to the various churches, thus not requiring any such introduction. It was to be read out in the churches.
Its basic message is clear. Its aim is to present Christ to the believing heart so that believers might open themselves to the light of God; enjoy ‘eternal life’, the life from God which they at present enjoyed and experienced continually; be a shining testimony in the world; and have great love for one another. It secondarily also refutes those who suggest that Jesus did not really become man, but only took on the appearance of a man, or alternately that the man Jesus was not really God, and that sin was not important, if it was real at all.
We may possibly summarise the letter as follows. It begins by presenting the glorious coming into the world of the Word of Life, the Eternal life Who was with the Father and was manifested to His own, even His Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 1:1-4).
It then goes on to look at God from two points of view, firstly that God is light, and secondly that God is love. Both put heretics to flight. The fact that God is light reveals sin and ensures that Christians, seen in His light, are aware of their own sinfulness (1 John 1:5-10). But thankfully God has made a way in Jesus Christ through His death on the cross by which their sinfulness can be dealt with so that it is not a final problem (1 John 1:7; 1 John 1:9; 1 John 2:1-2). Thus aware of their sinfulness they are to keep His commandments within their hearts and in their lives. This includes the ‘old commandment’ which sums up in itself all God’s past commandments both as revealed in the Old Testament and in the teaching of Jesus, commandments which in their character reveal the pure life, eternal life, and the ‘new commandment’ to love one another. (1 John 2:3-11). For they walk in His light. If they live by these they will not sin. And sin is not something that Christians continue in without regard. Indeed they are concerned not to sin.
Having come to know the Father and the One Who was from the beginning, and having learned to stand against the Evil One, they are to love God and not the world with all its aims, desires, trends, covetousness and vainglory (1 John 2:12-17). Furthermore false christs have come, and seek to deceive even God’s chosen ones, but He has given them an anointing, His Holy Spirit, by which they can see through all deceit and know the truth about the Father and His true and only Son, Jesus Christ, God made man (1 John 2:18-27).
Thus are they to abide in Him as they await His coming, and in hope of it and what it will do in them, they are to seek to make themselves pure (1 John 2:28 to 1 John 3:3). For Christians are not such that they continue in sin without regard. In heart they aim to be non-sinning ones, although as chapter 1 showed they sadly do sin. But they see sin as a contradiction to what they are, for they walk in God’s light.
Thus they must continue to treat sin seriously and abjure it, and they are especially to love one another and reveal it in their lives. And especially are they to obey His commandment that they believe in God’s Son, Jesus the Christ and love one another as He commanded them (1 John 3:4-24).
False prophets will, however, come, seeking to turn them from the truth as it is in Jesus, and they are therefore to recognise that they must test the prophetic spirits of all who are called prophets by seeing whether they declare that the man Jesus and the Christ are one and the same, and that He is the true Son of God (1 John 4:1-6).
As they walk in God’s light they are to recognise that they have been begotten by God, and that God is not only light but holy love. Thus by knowing His love as revealed in the cross, and in the Son Himself, and in their begetting by God, and in many ways, they are to reciprocate by loving Him and by loving one another. Indeed a major test of true Christians is that they love one another. And their knowing that they are begotten of God will ensure that they do this and will enable them to do it (1 John 4:7 to 1 John 5:3).
As a result in the end, because they are begotten of God, they will have victory, will believe that the man Jesus Who was crucified is truly the Son of God and will overcome the world through God’s special witness to Him. For in Him they have received eternal life and it is now theirs (1 John 5:4-13).
Thus they can have boldness in prayer as they seek to spread His word and reveal the will of God, they should pray for one another in their joint battle against sin, they must recognise that they are in the sphere of God’s light and love, so that they are kept by God Who has begotten them, while the world lies in the Evil One. Thus do they know that they are of God, that God’s Son has come, giving them an understanding so that they know Him Who is true and His Son Jesus Christ, for this is the true God and the source of eternal life. And finally they are to keep themselves from all influences of idolatry of any kind, from the earthly manifestation of the Evil One (1 John 5:14-21).
The first part of the letter (from 1 John 1:5 to 1 John 3:10) concentrates on the fact that God is light (1 John 1:8) and that therefore Christians must treat sin and God’s commandments seriously (as certain adversaries were wont not to do) and walk in His light, the second part commences at 1 John 3:11 and stresses the centrality of love in connection with those who walk in the light. In fact love for one another is only mentioned once in 1 John 1:1 to 1 John 3:10 a, and that is in 1 John 2:10. From 1 John 3:11 onwards it abounds closely connected with the idea that God is holy love. Central to both sections is belief in and response to the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ, Who came to the world in human flesh, becoming a man among men, and the fact that God offers eternal life to those who respond to Him. On this basis let us look at the letter in depth.
01 Chapter 1
Verses 1-4
The Word of Life Declared (1 John 1:1-4).
‘That which was (imperfect) from the beginning, that which we have heard (perfect), that which we have seen (perfect) with our eyes, that which we beheld (aorist), and our hands handled (aorist), concerning the Word of life, (and the life was manifested (aorist), and we have seen (perfect), and bear witness (present), and declare to you (present) the life, the eternal life, which was (imperfect) with the Father, and was manifested to us (aorist)); that which we have seen (perfect) and heard perfect) we declare to you also (present), that you also may have fellowship with us (present): yes, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ: and these things we write, that our joy may be made full (or ‘fulfilled’).’
The main verb in this complex sentence is ‘we declare to you’. This letter is a declaration, and John’s purpose is to declare Christ in all His fullness. But the question is, what does he wish to declare? And his answer is, ‘That which was (imperfect) from the beginning, that which we have heard (perfect), that which we have seen (perfect) with our eyes, that which we beheld (aorist), and our hands handled (aorist), concerning the Word of life.’
1) ‘That which was from the beginning.’ In the light of John 1:1 this can only signify the eternity of ‘the Word of life’, of Christ and of His powerful and life-giving word. ‘In the beginning the Word was already in existence’ he had said in John 1:1, and that Word had created all things, and in Him was life which was as a light to men (John 1:1-5). Now he declares again that from the beginning there was that which already in existence before the commencement of the beginning, that which began the beginning, the Word, the Source and Creator of all things, for He spoke and it was done (Genesis 1:3; Psalms 33:6), and the Source and Creator of all truth and life. And here his especial emphasis is on Him as the Word of life. He is thus about to speak of the Eternal Life Who is the source of all life, and Who gives eternal life to His own.
So from the beginning of all things there was that which already was, that which already existed before time began, that which still continues in being, and ever will, that which was, that which is, and that which will be (compare Revelation 1:4; Revelation 1:8). And it is that which John seeks to declare.
The use of the neuter pronoun ‘that’ stresses the all-pervasiveness of what he is speaking about. ‘That’ which is spoken of was all in all. It was everything. Apart from ‘that’ there was nothing. The masculine pronoun (which would have indicated ‘the Word of life’ as a person) would have drawn attention away from the fact that what he was describing was this all-pervasive ‘everything’. God was all. Prior to the beginning there was nothing apart from God and His Word and His Spirit. And he will now reveal and declare that which already existed when the beginning began, and has been ever since. And it is ‘concerning the Word of Life’ Who also existed in the beginning.
So what John is telling us is that He Who was always in existence in the beginning, He Who was everything, came out of eternity into time, He came as the One Who ‘was continually in existence even in and before the beginning’, and He came in Jesus. Thus he is declaring that this Jesus Christ of Whom he will write has eternal essence and existence, and comes from the Source of all things, because He is essentially in His being of the Source of all things. The use of the neuter pronoun ‘that’ draws attention to the fact that he wants us to look at What Jesus is rather than just Who He is. Here is the Almighty, pre-existent One, the All-in-all, come as a Word from God bringing life, come from the Beginning, personally revealing God to man (John 14:6-11; Hebrews 1:1-3).
2) ‘That which we have heard (perfect), that which we have seen (perfect) with our eyes, that which we beheld (aorist), and our hands handled (aorist), concerning the Word of life.’ But now he moves on to the wonder of it. ‘That which was from the beginning’ has actually been heard and seen and gazed at and handled. The Eternal Word of Life has come and revealed Himself to man, indeed has become man and lived among them to be seen, heard, observed and handled.
John is bringing out two aspects here. The first that ‘we’ (those who had been with Jesus) had heard Him and seen Him with their own eyes (1 John 4:14), and still did so. The perfect indicates something happening in the past and continuing into the present. He cannot forget the glory of it and it is still with him. We heard, and we still hear, we saw, and we still see. He is stressing that it was a real experience and that so it will ever be with them. There is both an emphasis on their actual hearing and seeing of Him as He was in the flesh (John 1:14), and on the fact that spiritually that hearing and seeing still goes on in a deeper way, for it is imbedded in their hearts, illuminated by the Spirit, and experienced daily in their lives because He is the living One, the Word of life.
To John and those who had been with Jesus, Jesus is ever present, continually heard, continually ‘seen’, for though His physical presence has departed, His spiritual presence is ever more near, not just in memory but because He is with them always even as He promised (Matthew 28:20). And what was true for him and for them was true for all those who have walked with Jesus and are truly His, whether living or dead. And was in a very real sense true still for all those who now followed Jesus.
‘That which we have heard.’ Throughout the ministry of Jesus they had heard His words, they had wrestled with them, and then finally through the Spirit’s illumination those words had sunk deeply into their hearts, and they had finally understood them. And all that they had heard from Him he wishes to communicate, and all that they had come to understand that those words meant he wishes to communicate. Through hearing they had not only received the word of life, but had also come to understand and more fully appreciate He Who was the Word of Life (John 14:6), and they longed to communicate Him to others.
‘That which we have seen (perfect) with our eyes.’ They had not only heard, they had seen. They had seen the wonder of His life, the depths of His love, the awe-inspiring holiness of His light (John 3:16-21). They had watched and they had wondered. They had seen His glory manifested in the Transfiguration (Mark 9:1 onwards). They had beheld His advance into suffering. They had experienced His self-revelation through His word in the Upper Room. They had seen and handled Him in His glorious resurrection body. And at last finally the Holy Spirit had illuminated it all in their hearts so that they were as men who saw clearly. And what he had seen he now longs to declare, to pass on, that others might see Him too.
The second aspect, lest we spiritualise too much, is to emphasise boldly the actual physical aspect of the seeing and the handling. We saw, and our hands handled. The aorists emphasise the once for all nature of the seeing and handling, and the handling stresses the physical aspect. It happened to us all (those who followed Jesus in His life on earth). We actually saw Him in the flesh, and we handled Him in the flesh, and He was truly flesh, He Who was from the beginning, God made man. Here the thought is of witness from the past rather than of continuation into the present, and the ‘handling’ especially has in mind the words of Jesus to Thomas (John 20:27 see also John 20:20) and to His disciples, ‘see My hands and My feet that it is I Myself, handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me as having’ (Luke 24:39). He can assure them that Jesus really was a man of flesh and bones, a true human being.
3) ‘Concerning the Word of life.’ This is what it is all about. One had come Who was in Himself the Word of life. In the beginning He already was ‘Life’, the Living One. And He Who was the Word had brought the word of Life from the Father, coming as His Word, as His self-revelation, and that life was given to those who received and responded to God’s word (1 John 1:10, 1 John 2:5, 1 John 2:7, 1 John 2:14) and to Him Who is God’s Word (John 1:4-5; John 1:14; John 1:18). Here was God’s eternal Word to man, seen in a man, and heard and received from that man. For when we proclaim Christ we proclaim Someone and not just something. The word of God is so because it points to the personal, living Word of God. And to respond to His word, if meaningful, is to respond to Him Who is the Word.